


Star Trek Spangled Man

by Kayevelyn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-19 19:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1481941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayevelyn/pseuds/Kayevelyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space: The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship, America. It's five year mission? To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and civilization. To try and keep the completely insane crew under control......</p>
<p>That'll go over well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stardate 45361.2

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely the fault of IfIWereMagneto and hopefully it's vaguely what she was looking for when she went off on twitter about a Star Trek AU featuring Captain Steve Rogers and First Officer Bucky Barnes.
> 
> I'll be adding pairings as this goes no doubt, but since I don't know where this is going bar like 5/6 parts who knows.

Steve woke up in the middle of his fourth week as captain of the USS America to _something_. He stared into the dark of his room, trying to figure out what had woken him up. There were no sirens, no pounding on his door, or even Bucky actually in his room trying to wake up him for some emergency.

He was about to lie back down when he heard it.

“No, Sir, that didn’t seem to fix it.”

Steve shot up again, looking around his room. “Jarvis?” he asked, trying to see where Tony’s android was in his room.

“My apologies, Captain Rogers, Dr. Stark seems to be having a problem with his latest project—You aren’t a ranked officer because you got into a fight with Admiral Fury about it, but you have a doctorate, so it is the proper assignment—Yes Commander Barnes we are trying to fix this as quickly as possible—Forgive me Lieutenant Romanova… no, I do not have eyes in your room I can assure you—Thor, the doughnut thief ran down hallway 32—“

The chatter continued, Jarvis’ voice layered over and over itself as he held multiple conversations that were all being broadcast throughout the entire ship.

Steve climbed out of bed and reached for his uniform because this was obviously something he was going to have to deal with. When he stepped out of his quarters he saw his first officer, Bucky, doing the same, and they nodded to each other as they fell into step, heading down to Tony’s engineering lab.

“At least it’s almost alpha shift,” Bucky said, looking down at the PADD he had brought along with him. Steve hadn’t thought that far ahead, just planning on speaking with Tony and hoping he would peacefully unwire Jarvis from the ship’s speakers.

“Alpha shift begins in two point twenty seven hours, Commander—Sir, I don’t think that wire is the right one—Ensign Lewis, I would not advise you to disconnect that speaker no matter how much you need your beauty sleep you will get… electrocuted—Can a nurse please report to Room 3240, Ensign Lewis needs medical help—“

Jarvis continued to speak, and Steve shook his head because _really Tony, this is what you determine to be a good use of your time?_ The gamma shift crew members that he passed on his way down to engineering all cleared the way for him and Bucky, some of them looking amused, while others looked afraid. They didn’t know how he was as a captain, and this was the first real problem they had encountered. Steve knew they were expecting a fight to break out; Tony’s attitude was notorious after all.

“I’ll keep the riff-raff out of the lab,” Bucky said over the sound of Jarvis trying to direct Thor towards the kitchens, where he had apparently locked the doughnut thief in a freezer.

“Riff-raff?” Steve mouthed, but then his attention was fully on Tony as he stepped into the lab, Natasha appearing at his side a moment later, looking furious. Apparently she wasn’t _riff-raff_. “Stark.”

Tony looked out from behind his computer, and broke into a beautiful smile. The one that said he had done something horribly wrong and he was going to try and get out of being blamed. “Captain! How wonderful of you to join me in my lab. Now, if you remember from our first day I have office hours, tell the man, Jarvis.”

“Hello, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said in stereo and Steve blinked as he saw that Jarvis-The-Android was still functioning.

“You’re still,” Steve made a gesture, “not a disembodied voice.”

Jarvis-The-Android waved, his old gentleman face never breaking the fond smile even as he looked back at his PADD. “Sir, I’m uploading the latest patch.”

“Good man, Jarvis,” Tony said, going back to his computer.

Natasha elbowed Steve in the ribs, and he winced before looking down at her. She made a point of looking from Jarvis to Tony, raising her eyebrows as if to communicate with him. It was apparent she had been woken up, and if there was only one thing he had learned about his crew members in these four weeks it was that they either were insomniacs, or they hated being woken up. Natasha was the latter.

Steve snapped his attention back to Tony. “Stark, did you upload Jarvis to the entire ship?”

“Is this a trick question? This feels like a trick question,” Tony said.

“ _Stark_.” Steve was slowly becoming aware of the crowd gathering outside Tony’s lab. A quick glance confirmed that Sif from security had joined Bucky in keeping the crowd at bay (as much as that helped since it didn’t look like either of them were doing much except glaring).

“Listen, Steve, Captain, I’ll call you Captain… I’m a genius. And sometimes in a fit of brilliance you realize something so momentous you have to just jump into it. This is one of those things. And I know it’s got a few bugs but it’ll be huge. Jarvis being _one with the ship_ means he can help _anyone_. It will be so tremendously helpful I can’t even begin to explain. Also, Foster and Banner want it. See,” he flicked on the communicator, “Dr. Foster, aren’t you going to get a lot of use out of Jarvis being an AI in the ship?”

Steve raised his eyebrow, knowing better than to interrupt Tony mid-rant. Natasha was rolling her eyes before turning her attention back to the computer she had sat down at. It was the only sign that she wasn’t actually sleeping with her eyes open.

Jane Foster’s voice came through crystal clear on the communicator. She sounded a strange mix of amused, tired, and exasperated. “Yes, Tony, it would be a great help. If it worked.”

Tony’s smile never faded through the backhanded comment as he clicked off the communicator. “Bruce has the exact same sentiments.” His finger went back to the communicator, presumably to contact Bruce, and Steve raised his hand in a sign for Tony to stop.

“Stark. Stark! I get it. I do. Jarvis would be a great help to the running of this ship.”

“Thank you, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis-In-Stereo said, as Tony lit up even more.

“But! Only if you get it working.” Steve dropped his hand. “And next time you decide to upgrade something like this, try not to do it during gamma shift.”

“You got it boss,” Tony said with a wave of his hand, inputting a string of keys into his computer.

The entire lab went dark. 

“ _Stark_ ,” Natasha said slowly, before the lab… rebooted.

Steve was sure the combined looks on their faces would kill a lesser man.

“System resetting. Diagnostics are reading clear.” Jarvis said through the speakers, and a quick glance to Jarvis-The-Android proved it was _only_ through the speakers.

“How you feeling, Jarvis?” Tony asked, looking up.

“Excellent, sir. That patch did just the trick.”

“Of course it did,” Tony said, “Jarvis, please announce to the ship that you are ready for business.”

“At the start of alpha shift!” Steve cut in, leveling a look at Tony. “Jarvis wait until then so the majority of the ship is at least awake.”

“Absolutely Captain,” Jarvis said, and that was sort of weird, because Steve heard Jarvis speaking but Jarvis-The-Android was puttering around the lab, cleaning up after the mess Tony had made, clearly not speaking.

Tony was already on to the next task, happily utilizing his two Jarvises. Steve thought about calling him out on the fact that this endeavor was obviously incredibly selfish, but looking out at the crowd that was still there despite Bucky and Sif’s mean glares, it wasn’t worth it. Better to focus on the positives that came out of Tony’s need for two Jarvises.

Natasha stood up and walked over to Tony. Steve was about to leave the lab, but the sound of Tony squawking stopped him, and when he turned around he saw Natasha pointing a finger at Tony’s chest.

“Next time you do something like that I will actually hurt you.”

“Threat. I’m feeling threatened. Captain, stop her.” Tony said, but his voice was dry as he gently moved her hand to the side, so Steve just shook his head and left the two of them to it.

When he stepped out of the lab the crowd tried to look busy, moving away as quickly as possible. Steve gave Bucky and Sif a look. “Really?”

“They were orderly and not causing any harm,” Sif said with an air of disinterest. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain.” She sauntered off, but not before Steve saw her pass Bucky a flat square disk which he quickly recognized as a replicator disk, capable of upgrading the kitchen’s replicators with new content.

Bucky didn’t even look ashamed. “We made a bet about whether or not you’d roll over for Stark.”

“And you bet that I wouldn’t?”

Bucky laughed. “Hell no, I bet that you’d let him do whatever he wanted.” He reached up and ruffled Steve’s hair, and Steve let him because he knew that Bucky was only doing it because no one was around to see it.

“Glad to see you have such faith in me.”

Bucky flipped the replicator disk over. “Sif has _coffee_ on this bad boy. I mean real coffee, not that swill they serve in the kitchen.”

“You know, we’re down in engineering. If you really want you can always ask Dr. Stark,” Steve said, pointing back to the lab as they walked away.

“Nah, much better to win this off our co-workers.” Bucky was smiling. “Hey, since we’re up already how about I treat you.”

“Oh, because I won you that?”

“You did not win me this. My knowledge of you won me this. Completely different.”

Steve and Bucky headed up towards the kitchen, where it was a lot more crowded than it normally would be. Jarvis had woken up the entire ship. Steve took the time to stop and apologize to most of the crew who looked too exhausted to function as they all sat in one of the large cafeterias. Bucky left him to it, heading to get them breakfast, with the promised coffee, before Steve started his own shift. Bucky wasn’t scheduled until beta shift this week. They were still testing out the best way to spread out their duties, and they wouldn’t start pulling double shifts until they were docked against a planet.

Which was coming up, Steve remembered as he finally sat down and Bucky passed him his PADD.

“I got you a complete dossier on the planet we’ll be visiting. It’s assumed to be Class L, and as you can guess, we’ll be collecting vegetation, which will no doubt make Jane very happy…..”

***

“How is your first month going?” Peggy asked him over the video conference. It was the first one they were able to have since he had been given the USS America, but his old captain didn’t look like much had changed for her.

“So far, so good. We’ve had two successful prep missions and we’ll be heading for our first real assignment in the next few days.” He was in his quarters to take the call, on his first day off since launch. He hadn’t minded the non-stop pace, it being similar to what he had encountered on the USS Commando during his first three-year tour.

He did, however, have moments where he missed his old crew dearly. It wasn’t that he didn’t think his new crew would be able to compare, and he did have Bucky brought over, but it wasn’t the same.

It would get there.

Peggy was nodding. “You’re heading out towards Cardassian space, right?”

“That’s the plan. We’ll be sending word once we get closer, of course, to tell them what we are up to. Is your mission still around Klingon?”

“Yes. It looks like we’ll be helping ferry diplomats back and forth for a little while. Not quite the adventures it was the first go-round.” She gave him a significant look. “I also don’t have a first officer who thinks it’s perfectly okay to jump head first into unknown planets because someone in security thought it would be a good idea.”

Steve laughed. “Dum-Dum will give you a whole new set of problems, I’m sure.”

“Not the same as I’m sure you’re going to face. Is it true that Tony Stark was allowed back in Starfleet?”

“Yes, yes, that is true. He’s my Chief of Engineering. And before you ask, three days ago I was woken up because he decided it was a good idea to upload an AI to the entire ship, so it’s going swimmingly.”

Peggy’s eyes went wide, and then she laughed loud and free in a way she never did when he was serving under her. “Oh, I would have killed him. But does it work?”

“It does. And it’s a big help to some of our other crew members if I’m to believe them.”

“That’s amazing,” Peggy said with a low whistle. “I’d almost forgive being woken up.”

“The whole ship actually.” Steve heard the door to his quarters open and from the corner of his eye he saw Bucky enter holding dinner. “Good evening, First Officer Barnes.”

Bucky gave him a juvenile gesture from back on Terran as he sat down, eyes darting to the vid screen. “Ma’am.” He nodded to Steve. “Oh, wonderful captain.”

“I see you haven’t changed,” Peggy said.

Bucky saluted her with a smile. “How are our lovely Howling Commandos?”

“They miss you both terribly.” Peggy said, somehow making the statement sound both sardonic and sentimental.

“Make sure to pass on our salutations.”

Steve snorted because Bucky always hammed it up for Peggy, even when it was their first week and they had to report to her to explain why a suspect they had been chasing through the halls had ended up covered in garbage after trying to escape from them. She had not been impressed then, and she certainly wasn’t impressed now.

“Steve was telling me about your ship’s wake up call the other day.”

Bucky groaned, dropping his fork before he even took the first bite. “I just want to say that no matter how bad we may have been, we have never done that.”

“Only because we didn’t know how,” Steve said.

Bucky glared at him, but it quickly morphed into a relaxed smile as he started to eat. Steve continued to speak with Peggy, filling her in about the details of their missions, as well as what was upcoming. Bucky spoke up occasionally, usually to add an aside about one of their crew members.

Steve didn’t notice the passage of time until Jarvis alerted him that it was almost his personally assigned curfew ( _Yes he had one, Bucky, otherwise he’d be up all night and never get any work done_ ), startling Peggy even over the vid call.

“You’ll keep me updated, right, Steve?” She asked.

“Of course, Captain.” Steve couldn’t help his wince, because he had managed to go the whole conversation without dropping her title. She had demanded they were equals now, and friends, so they should speak to one another as such.

Peggy looked amused though as her eyes darted over to Bucky. “You’ll keep him in line, James?”

“Always do, ma’am.” He saluted her in the middle of stacking their dishes up to take back to the cafeteria. “We’ll have to meet up next time we’re both in the same area. Maybe we’ll be able to talk like real boys and girls.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Ignore him. I’m glad you had the time to talk to me. I’m sure I’ll have more questions the deeper into this tour I go.”

“Of that I have no doubts. But really, Steve, you two will be okay, I think.” Peggy said, right before she signed off.

Now how could he argue with that?


	2. Stardate: 45378.0

“You can’t get a good date that side of Terran unless your taste runs towards Gorn. In which case it’s perfect.” Tony paused to consider what he had just said. “And if it is perfect then I will personally take you there because I would want to watch that, film it for science, and possibly take some samples.”

Sam laughed. “You’ll have to show me.”

That got a rise out of Tony, and he seemed to forget he was _on a vid screen talking to the entire bridge_ as he went off on a tangent. Steve facepalmed, not that Tony noticed, and he looked around the bridge. Bucky was seated next to him looking almost as amused as Tony himself was, though he hadn’t joined the conversation yet. Sam and Clint were seated at the helm, both carrying on conversation with Tony as if it was nothing special. Since they were the ones who had brought up the vid call in the first place Steve could believe that they didn’t think anything he was saying was that impressive.

Behind him Natasha was at her work station, headphones in as she listened for any communications that might come in. Not that any would, since they were getting far off the grid and weren’t due to check in with Star Fleet command for another three weeks, once they were done with this first _official_ mission.

On that note, according to the report from Clint prior to this whole conversation with Tony started, they were supposed to get to the planet within the hour. So that was a good enough reason as any to cut Tony off mid-sentence as he said, “I keep trying to convince Bruce we should try and create a sex serum from the tribbles-”

“Commander Barnes, can you brief us on the planet again?” Steve asked. He saw Bucky roll his eyes, which meant he probably wasn’t as subtle as he wanted to be. But oh well. It got Tony to stop.

“And that’s my cue to go. Have fun with that briefing!” Tony said just before he cut off the vid call.

Sam and Clint didn’t even look disappointed as they pointedly didn’t look back at Steve with smirks on their faces. He wondered if feeling like he had no control over his entire crew was a feeling most captains got. But it didn’t matter as Bucky pulled out his PADD and began reciting what they had already gone over three times that day.

“Planet Epsilon Sex - yes, Natasha, we all know the travesty it is that they’ve started mixing Ancient Greek and Ancient Latin; bring it up at the next board meeting. Class L. Rumored to have giant leafy vegetation that Dr. Foster believes is similar to vegetation on Theta Octo and can help with healing. No known poisons, but that’s part of why we are going. Ensigns and crewmembers can volunteer to be test subjects of any purple berries we find in the mess hall!” 

Steve let out a sigh as he reached over and grabbed Bucky’s PADD, hoping it would put him back on track. Bucky let him take it, never breaking his speech. 

“Temperature is an unknown but we think the planet has an Af climate. We’ll do more serious readings once we get there to check how breathable the air is.”

Steve closed out of the report on Bucky’s PADD and paused for a moment, surprised to see his own face staring back at him. Bucky had a picture from their childhood as his wallpaper - one from before Steve had hit puberty. Steve couldn’t remember the exact memory associated with the picture but it looked like it had been summer.

PADDs didn’t come with a wallpaper function, but it seemed like Bucky had managed to get a hacked version. A quick look at the top right corner and Steve saw a stylized “S” which indicated that Bucky had let Tony get a hold of his PADD, probably to give it a couple extra features.

Steve supposed he might have to give his own over to Tony if it got him the option of having a wallpaper. He had a picture of the two of them from the day they graduated the academy together that he would want to use. Though if Bucky had one picture on his PADD there was a good chance he might have more hidden away, and Steve wanted to see them.

“Away Team 1 will consist of Dr. Foster, Ensign Lewis, two other crewmembers that I don’t know the names of because the captain has my notes so please don't tell them I forgot, Lieutenant Wilson, and Thor. Prior to Away Team 1 we will be sending down a security team to check the area, members to be determined. Remind me again why we are sending a security team down when Thor is going with the away team?” Bucky turned to look at him.

Steve looked up from Bucky’s PADD, where he had still not located the pictures folder. “Because it’s standard procedure.”

“It’s a Class L planet. There is no life down there.” Bucky gestured with his hand. “Thus the designation.”

“How many times have we been to a Class L planet and discovered inhabitants?”

“Once, but that hardly counts! They were refugees from Parada II, not natives. And no one got sacrificed, or hurt.”

Steve clicked on a promising looking folder, hoping to find the pictures before they had to go back to work. “We’re following procedure, Bucky.”

A colorful chart popped up, and it took Steve a moment to realize that there were little cartoon heads of the crew, some of whom were connected by different colored lines. He couldn’t help it, he turned the PADD towards Bucky. “What is this?”

Bucky glanced at the screen for a moment and then shrugged. “The USS America’s Interpersonal-Relationship Map. I’ve been trying to come up with a snappy acronym for it.”

Steve looked back at the chart, noting that he could swipe between charts to pull up different groups of relationships. He swiped back to the default, which seemed to be the higher-ups. A yellow line connected Bucky’s cartoon head and himself. Light green connected Bucky with Tony and Thor, while Tony and Bruce were connected by a grey line. Clint and Sam were connected with a forest green. Natasha’s only colored line was a bright red line from her to Tony. Everyone was connected with white lines.

“It’s a work in progress,” Bucky explained.

“Why do you even have something like this?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away, and when Steve looked over at him, he saw Bucky seemed almost defensive. “It tracks all kinds of relationships. It’ll track who is friends with who, and who is _more than friends with who_ , and you know Captain Carter had something very similar.”

“No, she didn’t.”

Bucky frowned, and almost looked shame-faced. “Okay, no, she didn’t, but she should have! There were way too many hook-ups on that ship. I mean yes, five year mission, it’s bound to happen. I just want to keep track of them so I know who can be on schedule with who.”

“There aren’t going to be that many people getting together!”

Bucky gave him _a look_. He couldn’t tell if it was disbelief that Steve could be that naive or pity. “Steve. How many young kids were there on the Commando when we started our mission?”

“Just the two: Kurt and Marie.”

“And how many young kids were there at the end of our three year mission?”

Steve flushed, the number flashing in his head. “That’s,” he sighed, composing himself. “That doesn’t mean you should track people’s love lives.”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Clint spoke up, while Sam nodded next to him.

It reminded Steve that he and Bucky were having this discussion in the middle of the bridge.

“What happened to you?” Sam was asking, when Steve finally got over the fact that he had let himself do something so unprofessional. He had been very good so far about keeping his conversations with Bucky private.

“Me and a very nice lady,” Natasha snorted from her post behind Steve, and while Steve didn’t think anything of it, Bucky reached over to grab his PADD back and made a pointed show of drawing a line from Natasha’s bobblehead to Clint’s, “took a less than amicable break. Not for the first time, but our captain didn’t know we had been,” he added finger quotes, “ _intimate_ , and so we were both put on Away Team together. The planet was hospitable at least, but the natives had a habit of laying out traps to catch their food, and I got trapped in one.” Sam let out a loud laugh. “And because my only backup was this very nice lady, once she determined I wasn’t in immediate danger, she left me there. For two hours. Upside down.”

Steve glanced at Bucky changing the color of Natasha and Clint’s line from dotted red to a solid bright pink. He didn’t want to know what those lines meant, or why just hearing that made Bucky think he knew how to _color code their fellow crew member’s love lives_.

“Does anyone else have any comments on this matter?” Steve asked.

Bucky closed out of the program, and smiled widely at Steve. “Do you want me to make an announcement?”

Steve mouthed, “you’re an asshole,” to Bucky, but let the conversation drop.

***

Steve crossed his arms in front of his chest and hoped it made him look intimidating. From Bucky’s unimpressed look as he continued to get together his security team kit he didn’t think it was working. “Remind me again why you are going but I have to stay on the ship?

“Because you’re the captain.”

“Which means I should be able to go on security missions.”

“Technically,” Bucky said, standing up and poking Steve in the chest, “I outrank you when it comes to security. Remind me who was chief of security on the Commando? And who would be chief of security here if you hadn’t bumped me up to first officer? Not that I’m not happy about you being with us Thor,” Bucky added on as an aside, reaching out and grabbing Thor’s forearm in a sign of Asgardian greeting.

Thor beamed at him. “I never would think that! It will be good to have see you in action after reading some of your old files, though I’ve been told there won’t be much action down there.”

“This time,” Bucky said.

“There is always the hope of some unknown natives.”

“Do you security types just sit around hoping for something to blow up in your face?” Sam asked as he joined them in the transporter room.

“It is the only way we can do our jobs!” Thor said with a booming laugh.

Bucky turned back to Steve. “We need to have Terrans down there to see what the conditions will be like for the science team. Our main security team is from Asgard after all, so they won’t be an accurate gauge.”

“I am Terran, if you don’t remember.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s thigh. “Yeah, but you’re also a freak who is all,” his eyes ran up and down Steve’s body, “perfect looking. We already have Sam coming with us; we’re going to need someone with normal reactions to climate conditions.”

Steve raised his hands up in a sign of defeat. “Next mission. I am going down, and you can captain the ship.”

Bucky made a face that showed how much he didn’t like that idea, but he didn’t vocalize it. Steve looked around the transporter room as the rest of the security team finished getting their stuff together.

They would only be down there to check the perimeter of the first area Away Team 1 was going to be in, and to see how well they stood up under the conditions so everyone knew what equipment to have down on the planet. Steve clapped his hand on Bucky’s back, and he received a smile in return.

Sam, Thor, Sif, and Hogun were standing by the transporter platform waiting for the okay to step up and be beamed down. Steve nodded to them and headed towards the console, allowing Bucky to join the others.

“Am I late? Oh good, I’m not late,” Jane said as she breezed into the room with a pack over her shoulder.

“Doctor Foster, this is just the security team,” Steve pointed out.

“I know,” she said with the wave of her hand. “But I wanted to be here when they beamed down to keep track of their vitals. And to remind the team to please try not to step on anything.”

Bucky smirked. “Gonna be hard Doctor, since there will be ground down there.”

Jane’s look could kill. “I’m serious. On Epsilon Decem, Epsilon Sex’s sister planet, one of the plants released a toxin when stepped on. Think of it as a deadly version of skunk cabbage. We think there is a chance of a similar plant here, since their ecosystems are so similar.”

Steve shook his head, motioning for the ensign at the console to beam them down. “Try not to blow up another planet, Bucky.”

“You cause one tiny fire-” Bucky’s voice faded out as they were beamed down to the surface.

Steve looked over at Jane. “I want their vid feeds sent to the bridge. Once they return you can make your first trip down. We’ll start with a two hour shift depending on how the climate actually is, but once we’ve spent three shifts in this area we’ll move to section 8.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jane said as she started to go through her equipment.

“And we’ll see about an overnight expedition after we’ve cleared a 300 mile radius of the planet.” With those words Steve left the transporter room and headed back to the bridge. 

The security team was already on the vid screen, chatting amongst themselves. The feed was coming from the camera on Thor’s insignia, so Steve could see the rest of the team, since Thor was taking up the rear.

“Initial report?” Steve asked as he sat down in his chair.

“The radar is empty, Captain,” Bucky said. “Seems like this planet is actually devoid of life.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, it’s hot as hell.”

Steve rolled his eyes as Thor took over speaking. “I agree with the commander. It is definitely a tropical environment, and as we get further from the drop zone the denser and taller the vegetation gets. There are not many clearings.”

Steve could see that. Bucky and Sam had disappeared behind some bright yellow foliage, and even Thor’s height made it impossible to see over the large canopy leaves of the plants.

“Thor, what level do you think the heat is at? We were going to start with two hour shifts.”

“It is at no more than orange for me, Captain. With proper hydration it should be fine. Though the longer we are out here the more apparent how muggy it is.”

“I’d definitely recommend a breathing apparatus,” that was Sam, voice sounding tinny and Steve could only guess it was because he was breathing through his own air filter mouth piece.

“The temperature reminds me of Vulcan,” Thor said as he caught up with the rest of the team. “Well, if Vulcan was not a desert.”

Bucky and Sam were both wearing breathing apparatuses. On top of that the rest of the team looked hot in their long sleeve uniforms, but it had been a recommendation on behalf of Doctor Foster in case any of the plants caused a reaction. Steve made a mental note to greet the team with fresh uniforms, and to recommend to Doctor Foster that her team wear a lighter weight uniform.

The team fell silent as they went about their job securing the perimeter, and taking note of what they saw as problematic. The vid screen stopped, showing the rest of the team as Thor went off in one direction, but Steve kept it running just in case. Occasionally one of the team would call out to each other, but otherwise it was very routine.

They reconvened quickly, all of them looking worse for wear than they had when they separated. Which was impressive because even the Asgardians seemed to be feeling the effect of the humidity. Steve noted that they were not wearing breathing apparatuses at least.

“Ready to be beamed up,” Bucky said over the comm, and Steve rose to head back to the transporter room.

The crewmember he had messaged to have fresh uniforms for the team was waiting patiently outside the room, and smiled when he passed her. By the time he had thanked her and taken the uniforms into the transporter room the team was already back on the platform.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Bucky muttered as he popped his breathing apparatus out of his mouth, spotting Steve and his fresh uniforms.

Sam followed his eyesight and he grinned. “Amen.”

Sif snorted as if she thought they were weak for being uncomfortable in their uniforms, but she was the first one to grab a replacement from Steve. “Thanks.”

Hogun was next, and then Sam, who seemed to be undressing at the same time, throwing his sweaty uniform on the ground, only to collect it once he was redressed in a clean uniform.

Bucky hung back, talking with Thor before they clasped hands and Thor headed over to Doctor Foster. Steve kept one eye on them, trying to see if they were discussing anything that would need his attention. He knew, intellectually, that once Doctor Foster was down on the planet this was her mission, so he didn’t want to micromanage more than he already had, but he wanted everyone to know he was available.

“Give me that uniform,” Bucky said, snatching the final uniform out of Steve’s hands.

Steve laughed, turning his full attention to Bucky since Thor and Jane seemed to be stuck on introductions. “Sure you don’t want a shower before you put on the new uniform?”

“You’re lucky I’m not stripping naked and running through these air controlled hallways.”

Steve shook his head as Bucky stripped off his uniform top to reveal the undershirt he was wearing. “I’ll grab your kit for you.”

Bucky looked back, finally noticing that he had left his equipment bag on the floor. “Oh. Thanks.” He scrubbed his face with his dirty uniform shirt. “Do I have time to shower? Or am I needed on the bridge?”

Thor let out a booming laugh and when Steve looked over Jane was making a face that didn’t match the blush on her cheeks.

“Remind me to mark that down,” Bucky muttered, nudging Steve out of the transporter room at the same time Darcy was trying to enter it. 

Her nose crinkled as she looked at Bucky, and he flashed her a winning grin. She rolled her eyes and continued on her way, calling, “Hey Jane! I couldn’t find that reader you were looking for- hey there, gorgeous, I see you’ve finally met the boss lady.”

“Darling Darcy!” Thor said, and Steve shook his head.

“Don’t even start,” he warned as he steered Bucky towards their rooms. “I don’t want to hear a single thing about your damn _Interpersonal-Relationship Map_.”

“ _Very helpful_ ,” was all Bucky said as he let himself be guided towards his room, and thrown in so he could shower. The last thing Steve heard before the door shut was Bucky saying, “Don’t you just love watching people fall in love?!”


End file.
